1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printing-apparatus control methods and information processing apparatuses and programs for performing the same methods. In particular, the present invention relates to a printing-apparatus control method and an information processing apparatus and a program for performing the same method to insert slip sheets when a plurality of pages are printed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical ink-jet printers require a certain period of time until ink on printed paper dries. To overcome this shortcoming, a printer having an ink drying wait time mode is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-348247. If the ink drying wait time mode is specified, this printer suspends printing the subsequent page for an ink drying wait time determined according to the type of the previously printed paper.
Furthermore, inserting a slip sheet between printed sheets is also known as a technique for preventing printed sheets from being fouled as a result of one ink-undried sheet being stacked on another.
However, if a printer having an ink drying wait time mode performs printing in the ink drying wait time mode, the print time is prolonged by that ink drying wait time for each print operation, thus decreasing the total throughput. In particular, when printing on high-quality glossy paper is performed, a much longer ink drying wait time is required. In addition, if a slip sheet is inserted for every page to prevent recording agent (ink) on one sheet from transferring onto another, both the slip-sheet insert time and the consumption of sheets increase. To overcome these drawbacks, a user may select pages that would be fouled due to undried ink because, for example, images are printed on those pages and specify to insert slip sheets only for those pages. In this case, however, the user needs to understand and specify page locations at which slip sheets should be inserted to prevent printed sheets from being fouled. This increases workload imposed on the user and decreases the operability of the printer.